WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:14.240 What is your daily exposure to electromagnetic fields? 00:14.240 --> 00:23.960 Should you be worried? 00:23.960 --> 00:34.360 Tonight on Frontline, find out in Currents of Fear. 00:34.360 --> 00:42.120 Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by annual financial 00:42.120 --> 00:46.800 support from viewers like you. 00:46.800 --> 01:00.280 This is Frontline. 01:00.280 --> 01:09.360 Imagine an environmental agent to which everyone is exposed day and night. 01:09.360 --> 01:15.800 An agent that is invisible, odorless, and silent. 01:15.800 --> 01:21.280 An agent that affects young and old alike, at work and at play. 01:21.280 --> 01:26.440 Now imagine that this agent has been linked in dozens of studies to various cancers, but 01:26.440 --> 01:32.640 that the authorities have taken no action to protect their citizens. 01:32.640 --> 01:36.280 Some people believe this is what is happening now in America. 01:36.280 --> 01:41.000 The threat they see comes from the electromagnetic fields produced by the more than two million 01:41.000 --> 01:44.160 miles of power lines that crisscross the country. 01:44.160 --> 01:47.800 I think there is a major public health hazard here. 01:47.800 --> 01:50.880 I think the evidence to date clearly shows it. 01:50.880 --> 01:58.240 I think it is an unforgivably stupid public health policy to say that before we implement 01:58.240 --> 02:02.320 any kind of preventive measures, we should continue to study this for another five or 02:02.320 --> 02:07.400 ten years in the laboratory. 02:07.400 --> 02:16.520 Omaha, Nebraska, like everywhere, depends on electricity. 02:16.520 --> 02:21.560 The Larm family never questioned it until 1992. 02:21.560 --> 02:29.360 In February of 1992, my oldest son, Kevin, was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. 02:29.360 --> 02:35.800 That very day, in tears, I wanted to know what caused this cancer because I was afraid 02:35.800 --> 02:39.480 for all my children. 02:39.480 --> 02:48.400 Julie Larm took Kevin to the Omaha Children's Hospital to be treated. 02:48.400 --> 02:53.760 There she encountered other children with cancers, like Jonathan Hendricks and his mother 02:53.760 --> 02:59.120 Dee. 02:59.120 --> 03:03.360 Dee was startled by the number of kids at the clinic with cancer. 03:03.360 --> 03:08.520 When going through the oncology clinic here in Omaha Children's Hospital, I was blown 03:08.520 --> 03:09.520 away. 03:09.520 --> 03:16.000 In fact, I was in tears by the amount of other children that were suffering from cancer. 03:16.000 --> 03:24.400 I could not get out of my mind the faces of all the other bald-headed babies. 03:24.400 --> 03:29.240 I knew instantly that this was not a normal thing going on. 03:29.240 --> 03:34.480 I wondered what it was in my neighborhood or in Omaha that could have possibly caused 03:34.480 --> 03:37.160 my son to have cancer. 03:37.160 --> 03:41.680 And driving home one night, I noticed that there were huge transmission towers that were 03:41.680 --> 03:47.040 scattered throughout the neighborhood. 03:47.040 --> 03:51.800 Julie and Dee became friends and soon were contacted by other concerned citizens like 03:51.800 --> 03:52.920 Adrienne. 03:52.920 --> 03:55.320 I was diagnosed with herparamophilia. 03:55.320 --> 03:58.160 I was diagnosed with Addison's disease. 03:58.160 --> 04:02.200 I've had seven unexplained miscarriages. 04:02.200 --> 04:03.520 I have been diagnosed with cancer. 04:03.520 --> 04:06.640 I've had a complete hysterectomy. 04:06.640 --> 04:13.560 My parents lived 50 foot from a 160-volt line tower. 04:13.560 --> 04:20.000 We grew up as children playing, having tea parties, whatever, under that. 04:20.000 --> 04:24.420 Their suspicions that power lines had something to do with all these health problems were 04:24.420 --> 04:29.720 apparently confirmed when, a few months later, they saw a segment of the CBS News magazine 04:29.720 --> 04:39.760 Street Stories about the dangers of electromagnetic fields, or EMFs. 04:39.760 --> 04:44.280 The program featured a school in California where teachers had abnormally high cancer 04:44.280 --> 04:49.380 rates and a landmark Swedish study showing that children living near power lines had 04:49.380 --> 04:52.800 up to four times the risk of childhood leukemia. 04:52.800 --> 04:57.640 Immediately after this landmark study was released, the Swedish government and the power 04:57.640 --> 05:03.840 companies accepted the connection between electromagnetic fields and cancer. 05:03.840 --> 05:08.880 Also interviewed was a senior public health official, Dr. David Carpenter. 05:08.880 --> 05:13.480 I feel very strongly about this issue because I really feel people are dying from exposure 05:13.480 --> 05:17.180 to magnetic fields that could easily be avoided. 05:17.180 --> 05:19.740 So I called the health department the next day. 05:19.740 --> 05:24.960 They told me I had to gather the names and diagnosis for as many children as we could 05:24.960 --> 05:27.980 before they would start an investigation. 05:27.980 --> 05:33.240 So we began a telephone line of calling parents that we knew, and then they would in turn 05:33.240 --> 05:39.080 call parents, and we got a list of 11 children that lived within one mile of the substation 05:39.080 --> 05:43.040 that had been diagnosed with cancer within the last seven years. 05:43.040 --> 05:47.440 So then we called the health department back, and they in turn then did an investigation. 05:47.440 --> 05:52.720 We are getting an official map with the lines. 05:52.720 --> 05:58.040 While they waited for the health department, they began plotting cancers on a map and reading 05:58.040 --> 06:02.360 everything they could find on the health effects of magnetic fields. 06:02.360 --> 06:07.120 One author that caught their attention was pioneering environmental journalist Paul Brodeur. 06:07.120 --> 06:12.840 He had written about similar EMF cancer clusters in Connecticut and California. 06:12.840 --> 06:16.200 My name is Paul Brodeur. 06:16.200 --> 06:21.080 I've been a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine for the past 35 years. 06:21.080 --> 06:26.200 I was the journalist who first alerted the nation to the health hazard posed by asbestos. 06:26.200 --> 06:31.400 For Brodeur, EMFs were simply the latest of a series of environmental toxins that industry 06:31.400 --> 06:35.280 and government had tried to conceal from the public. 06:35.280 --> 06:37.120 It's pervasive. 06:37.120 --> 06:45.200 You literally have millions of unsuspecting men, women, and children exposed to power 06:45.200 --> 06:53.200 frequency magnetic fields that have already been associated in dozens upon dozens of studies 06:53.200 --> 06:58.960 conducted and published in the peer-reviewed medical literature levels that are associated 06:58.960 --> 07:01.800 with the development of cancer. 07:01.800 --> 07:12.600 Never before has there been this much epidemiological evidence of the carcinogenicity of any agent, 07:12.600 --> 07:19.280 and that evidence subsequently declared to be invalid, and that agent subsequently declared 07:19.280 --> 07:25.000 to be benign. 07:25.000 --> 07:29.440 By the time Julie Dee and Adrienne met with the Nebraska Health Department, they had become 07:29.440 --> 07:33.560 convinced there was a serious problem with the power lines in their neighborhood, and 07:33.560 --> 07:35.760 they were in no mood to be patronized. 07:35.760 --> 07:40.120 We used your map to put our dots on. 07:40.120 --> 07:47.400 These are the four zip codes outlined in yellow, these are substations, okay. 07:47.400 --> 07:51.800 Something's going on in this neighborhood, there's too many dots that represent families 07:51.800 --> 07:56.240 that are being torn apart by cancers, there's too many 17-month-old bald-headed babies in 07:56.240 --> 08:01.080 the neighborhood, and we're going to scream until someone figures out what's going on 08:01.080 --> 08:02.080 in this neighborhood. 08:02.080 --> 08:10.000 Yeah, the truth of the matter is that almost without exception, cancer cluster investigations 08:10.000 --> 08:18.320 don't come up with anything, they don't find a risk factor or a series of risk factors 08:18.320 --> 08:26.740 that might be responsible for the increase in the number of cases of cancer. 08:26.740 --> 08:30.680 When the head of the health department failed to turn up to this meeting, Adrienne became 08:30.680 --> 08:31.680 angry. 08:31.680 --> 08:38.840 Those are people, my sister dying of brain cancer, I watched her rot in Mayo Clinic for 08:38.840 --> 08:45.960 a year, and then a head of a health department doesn't come to the meeting, that's baloney. 08:45.960 --> 08:51.400 We get lied to, we get ignored, we have to go get our own information, we have to make 08:51.400 --> 08:55.800 our own maps, we have to find out about substations. 08:55.800 --> 08:59.840 That is not what our elected officials are for. 08:59.840 --> 09:02.880 We're getting screwed from both sides. 09:02.880 --> 09:07.960 The Omaha mother's concerns are shared by this man, Dr. David Carpenter, Dean of the 09:07.960 --> 09:12.040 School of Public Health at the State University of New York, Albany. 09:12.040 --> 09:17.740 Carpenter has been convinced for almost a decade that EMFs pose a genuine risk. 09:17.740 --> 09:20.520 In my judgment, they are dangerous. 09:20.520 --> 09:26.600 Up to 15% of all cases of childhood cancer might be attributable to exposure to magnetic 09:26.600 --> 09:31.120 fields from the power lines in the street. 09:31.120 --> 09:36.760 But not everyone agrees that power line magnetic fields are dangerous. 09:36.760 --> 09:41.800 The group most skeptical of Carpenter's claims are engineers and physicists, who argue that 09:41.800 --> 09:47.560 the laws of electricity and magnetism discovered a century ago are among the best understood 09:47.560 --> 09:49.440 theories in science. 09:49.440 --> 09:53.520 So those sparks are being produced by about one and a half million volts of electricity, 09:53.520 --> 09:59.920 but I can touch the inside, metal on the inside with my bare hands. 09:59.920 --> 10:04.600 So much so that museum staff entrust their lives to those principles every day, demonstrating 10:04.600 --> 10:05.600 them to children. 10:05.600 --> 10:13.040 There is probably nothing on earth or in the universe that we understand as well as electromagnetic 10:13.040 --> 10:20.280 fields and the interaction of electric magnetic fields with matter, including biological matter. 10:20.280 --> 10:26.320 All of chemistry and almost all of biology, excepting a few gravitational effects, are 10:26.320 --> 10:29.000 electrical. 10:29.000 --> 10:33.880 Bob Adair and his colleague Bill Bennett are professors of physics at Yale University. 10:33.880 --> 10:38.240 A few years ago they became interested in this area, and the more they studied it, the 10:38.240 --> 10:40.440 more skeptical they became. 10:40.440 --> 10:45.060 The notion that power line electromagnetic fields could cause disease seemed on the face 10:45.060 --> 10:48.380 of it to be scientifically impossible. 10:48.380 --> 10:53.360 The thing that struck me most puzzling about it is that the fields these people were dealing 10:53.360 --> 10:55.440 with are absolutely minuscule. 10:55.440 --> 11:00.400 They're talking about fields of two or three milligauss, fields that are one-two hundredth 11:00.400 --> 11:02.360 or so of the earth's magnetic fields. 11:02.360 --> 11:08.040 In the back deck, the milligauss readings, today they're kind of low. 11:08.040 --> 11:10.600 Magnetic fields are measured in milligauss. 11:10.600 --> 11:16.560 The fields recorded in most homes are of the order of a few milligauss at most. 11:16.560 --> 11:22.720 Yet as every school child knows, we live in a magnetic field, the earth's magnetic field, 11:22.720 --> 11:26.120 which causes a compass needle to point north. 11:26.120 --> 11:29.000 And this field is hundreds of times larger. 11:29.000 --> 11:33.600 In America, it is about five hundred milligauss. 11:33.600 --> 11:38.480 The earth's field, physicists argued, would totally dwarf those from power lines. 11:38.480 --> 11:44.700 There is absolutely no reasonable biological comparison between the earth's magnetic field 11:44.700 --> 11:48.800 in which we evolved as human beings and which, as some people think, is responsible, at least 11:48.800 --> 11:54.400 partially, for the way our brains and central nervous systems developed, and the power frequency 11:54.400 --> 11:59.120 fields, which have only been with us, really, in a meaningful way for fifty-six, seventy 11:59.120 --> 12:00.120 years. 12:00.120 --> 12:07.120 The magnetic field given off by power lines alternates to and fro sixty times a second 12:07.120 --> 12:10.800 to the rhythm of the sixty hertz alternating power. 12:10.800 --> 12:15.520 When you're standing underneath a power line, every cell in your brain and body is entrained 12:15.520 --> 12:16.520 to the rhythm. 12:16.520 --> 12:20.560 Well, that rhythm is going sixty times a second. 12:20.560 --> 12:25.220 But physicists have calculated the force this oscillating magnetic field could exert on 12:25.220 --> 12:30.680 moving charges in the body, and the electric currents it could induce, and concluded they 12:30.680 --> 12:37.200 are tiny, thousands of times less than the effects of the body's own heat bouncing molecules 12:37.200 --> 12:41.320 around. 12:41.320 --> 12:43.920 It's completely lost in the noise. 12:43.920 --> 12:50.800 The oscillation from the magnetic fields is absolutely minute compared to the general 12:50.800 --> 12:52.800 thermal oscillations. 12:52.800 --> 12:59.680 It would be a little like, let us say that you have a windstorm, an erratic windstorm 12:59.680 --> 13:05.240 where the wind's blowing all over the place, and somebody called your neighbor calls up 13:05.240 --> 13:09.240 and said, your cat is breathing on my tree. 13:09.240 --> 13:13.960 Since he breathes in and out, that causes the tree to be pushed in and out, and that 13:13.960 --> 13:15.600 might damage the tree. 13:15.600 --> 13:19.800 Well, you wouldn't take it very seriously. 13:19.800 --> 13:24.400 Physicists found it even harder to see how such a tiny field might cause cancer. 13:24.400 --> 13:29.160 Cancer is usually caused when very energetic radiation or some chemical agent directly 13:29.160 --> 13:32.440 breaks or rearranges DNA. 13:32.440 --> 13:39.640 Adair calculated that power line fields were millions of times too small to do this. 13:39.640 --> 13:47.120 John Molder is a radiation biologist, a specialist in how radiation can cure or cause cancer. 13:47.120 --> 13:52.840 Certain types of electromagnetic sources, the high energy ones, X-rays, cosmic rays, 13:52.840 --> 13:58.440 are capable of actually breaking bonds in biological material and in cells. 13:58.440 --> 14:03.640 And it's that breaking of bonds, specifically breaking of bonds in the genetic material, 14:03.640 --> 14:06.720 that can cause cancer. 14:06.720 --> 14:11.760 This kind of radiation, ionizing radiation, lies at the high end of the electromagnetic 14:11.760 --> 14:19.000 spectrum, vibrating at very high frequencies, 10 billion trillion times a second. 14:19.000 --> 14:24.840 Ionizing radiation like gamma rays from radioactive fallout, cosmic rays from space, and medical 14:24.840 --> 14:28.760 X-rays can all cause cancer. 14:28.760 --> 14:34.560 But at lower frequencies, the radiation no longer has the energy to break DNA. 14:34.560 --> 14:39.280 Within the optical frequencies, the photons have enough energy to excite electrons and 14:39.280 --> 14:45.160 molecules and that's the basis of how flowers grow and of how we see. 14:45.160 --> 14:50.800 Once we get down a little bit lower, down to lower frequencies now, into infrared and 14:50.800 --> 14:55.880 then into the microwaves and radio frequencies, the photon energy isn't even enough to do 14:55.880 --> 14:56.880 that. 14:56.880 --> 15:01.080 But it can heat and that's how a microwave oven works. 15:01.080 --> 15:03.240 It works by heating molecules. 15:03.240 --> 15:07.800 As the frequency gets a little lower, we now pass through the frequencies used for cellular 15:07.800 --> 15:16.600 phones, then television and FM radio and then even lower the ones used in broadcast AM radio. 15:16.600 --> 15:23.680 Around where AM radio is, the frequency is so low, the photon energy is so low, we don't 15:23.680 --> 15:25.240 even get heating. 15:25.240 --> 15:32.800 24 hours of every day, we are bathed in electromagnetic energy from all parts of the spectrum. 15:32.800 --> 15:40.800 Right at the low end, one million times less energetic than AM radio are power line EMFs. 15:40.800 --> 15:45.520 The fields from these lines vibrate only 60 times a second. 15:45.520 --> 15:51.240 This frequency is so low and the energy in the field so tiny that all other natural sources 15:51.240 --> 15:54.120 dwarf it. 15:54.120 --> 15:58.920 Physicists have calculated a person standing under a power line at night would get some 15:58.920 --> 16:06.080 10,000 times more electromagnetic energy from moonlight than from the power line. 16:06.080 --> 16:11.200 Such arguments led the 45,000 member American Physical Society to release a report last 16:11.200 --> 16:14.840 month saying that cancer fears were unfounded. 16:14.840 --> 16:19.940 Who says that the lower frequencies don't operate in another way to cause cancer? 16:19.940 --> 16:22.960 Who says that they all have to act in the same way? 16:22.960 --> 16:23.960 Who says they do? 16:23.960 --> 16:24.960 Ludicrous. 16:24.960 --> 16:27.040 I mean, what kind of mindset is that? 16:27.040 --> 16:34.880 Well, I fear it's the mindset of the American physicist. 16:34.880 --> 16:39.860 The fact that the physicists don't want to believe that should not in any event be the 16:39.860 --> 16:46.040 engine that drives public health policy in the face of all this epidemiology, which isn't 16:46.040 --> 16:52.320 the only valid tool we've ever had to take preventive public health measures. 16:52.320 --> 16:56.320 It was through epidemiology that we learned that cigarette smoking was hazardous. 16:56.320 --> 16:59.720 Through epidemiology that we learned that asbestos inhalation was hazardous. 16:59.720 --> 17:04.440 Through epidemiology that we've learned that virtually every one of the environmental carcinogens 17:04.440 --> 17:10.040 that we know today and against which we've taken action has come to light through epidemiology. 17:10.040 --> 17:13.000 So the physicists are going to tell us, no, forget epidemiology, let's go into the lab. 17:13.000 --> 17:15.040 Give me a break. 17:15.040 --> 17:17.160 When have they ever discovered anything about biology? 17:17.160 --> 17:19.080 Do you think they should stay out of this debate? 17:19.080 --> 17:22.840 No, I think everybody should get into the debate, the more the merrier. 17:22.840 --> 17:26.560 But I think it's ludicrous for physicists to try to pretend that they know about biology 17:26.560 --> 17:28.460 when they don't. 17:28.460 --> 17:32.660 And the example I gave that the last time they got involved in a major public health 17:32.660 --> 17:37.040 controversy it was to assure the American people that no possible hazard comes radioactive 17:37.040 --> 17:43.240 fallout goes to show you how stupid and wrong they were about ionizing radiation. 17:43.240 --> 17:47.600 Traditionally, epidemiologists studied epidemics. 17:47.600 --> 17:54.520 Working back from an epidemic, usually an infectious disease, they tried to find a cause. 17:54.520 --> 17:59.960 Great successes of epidemiology include the major infectious diseases and modern plagues 17:59.960 --> 18:04.520 like AIDS. 18:04.520 --> 18:10.500 But increasingly, epidemiology has been used to link environmental toxins with disease 18:10.500 --> 18:13.920 and this has proved more controversial. 18:13.920 --> 18:20.000 Here where the effects are strong, most scientists concede that epidemiology alone is sufficient 18:20.000 --> 18:23.880 to prove a serious public health risk. 18:23.880 --> 18:30.080 In heavy smokers, for example, the risk of disease, the so-called risk ratio is ten to 18:30.080 --> 18:32.880 twenty times that of a nonsmoker. 18:32.880 --> 18:38.040 Similarly, high risks were found in studies of asbestos workers. 18:38.040 --> 18:43.320 These findings were so striking that even before there was supporting laboratory evidence, 18:43.320 --> 18:47.880 many public health officials were convinced that such toxins endangered the public and 18:47.880 --> 18:51.860 advocated preventive health measures. 18:51.860 --> 18:56.680 So if magnetic fields pose similar risks, one might expect that electrical workers exposed 18:56.680 --> 19:02.000 to very high fields would get cancer at a significantly higher rate than average. 19:02.000 --> 19:08.600 EMF activists like Brodeur claim this is indeed the case. 19:08.600 --> 19:14.800 The clear preponderance of the occupational studies show that workers exposed to power 19:14.800 --> 19:20.800 frequency magnetic fields at home and at work are developing cancer at statistically significant 19:20.800 --> 19:24.800 higher rates than non-exposed people. 19:24.800 --> 19:29.900 But Brodeur's interpretation of the dozens of epidemiological studies isn't shared by 19:29.900 --> 19:32.620 many scientists. 19:32.620 --> 19:36.880 The first thing you ask is how strong are the correlations when you see them. 19:36.880 --> 19:39.920 So my favorite analogy is to cigarette smoking. 19:39.920 --> 19:45.840 Cigarette smokers have ten to twenty times the incidence of lung cancer of nonsmokers. 19:45.840 --> 19:48.120 That's a strong association. 19:48.120 --> 19:52.440 In the power frequency studies where we find associations, they've tended to be pretty 19:52.440 --> 19:53.560 weak. 19:53.560 --> 19:58.760 In the EMF studies that found an elevated risk of cancers, risk ratios of only 1.5 to 19:58.760 --> 20:01.040 2 are typically seen. 20:01.040 --> 20:04.360 The second thing you would look for is, is it consistent? 20:04.360 --> 20:08.080 Does everybody find the same thing? 20:08.080 --> 20:12.080 All studies, for instance, of smokers showed elevated lung cancer. 20:12.080 --> 20:15.840 But with the power frequency occupational studies, you don't see that. 20:15.840 --> 20:19.480 Some studies show leukemia elevated, some studies don't. 20:19.480 --> 20:24.960 Some show brain elevated, some show that they're not. 20:24.960 --> 20:30.240 Three recent very large occupational studies produced quite inconsistent results. 20:30.240 --> 20:35.160 One found elevated levels of brain cancer, but no leukemia. 20:35.160 --> 20:40.560 A second found no brain cancer, but did find a suggestion of a link with leukemia. 20:40.560 --> 20:42.920 A third found nothing at all. 20:42.920 --> 20:48.120 Many epidemiologists think this inconsistency combined with such low risk ratios raises 20:48.120 --> 20:53.560 serious questions as to whether there is in fact a real risk or whether all the studies 20:53.560 --> 20:57.080 are picking up is statistical noise. 20:57.080 --> 21:01.960 If it's a low level risk, you have to be very careful. 21:01.960 --> 21:06.680 Epidemiology is not sufficient in and of itself unless you have a situation where you have 21:06.680 --> 21:10.880 an overwhelming disease response. 21:10.880 --> 21:12.960 We have a few examples like that. 21:12.960 --> 21:18.460 The vinyl chloride monomer story where a small number of workers developed a very rare malignancy 21:18.460 --> 21:24.120 angiosarcoma of the liver and were identified as having very high exposures to vinyl chloride 21:24.120 --> 21:28.640 monomer in the process of cleaning out some of the reactors. 21:28.640 --> 21:33.080 There we had a risk ratio which exceeded 200. 21:33.080 --> 21:36.640 There were also issues about whether all of the workers in these studies had really been 21:36.640 --> 21:39.240 exposed to magnetic fields. 21:39.240 --> 21:46.560 While serving on the Oak Ridge panel investigation into EMFs, Bill Bennett read dozens of epidemiological 21:46.560 --> 21:50.920 papers and found some were quite misleading. 21:50.920 --> 21:57.080 There was one report published that referred to an epidemic of male breast cancer among 21:57.080 --> 22:01.520 telephone linemen in New York State in the phone company. 22:01.520 --> 22:06.760 When you look at the data, you find that although this predicted a relative risk of something 22:06.760 --> 22:12.560 like 6.5 to 1, there were only two cases that were reported and they weren't linemen at 22:12.560 --> 22:13.560 all. 22:13.560 --> 22:15.560 They were actually office workers. 22:15.560 --> 22:20.560 So that somehow on the basis of these two cases one is led to believe that there was 22:20.560 --> 22:24.600 a serious problem involved. 22:24.600 --> 22:29.080 And Bennett realized there were other occupational categories that epidemiologists seemed to 22:29.080 --> 22:32.320 have virtually ignored. 22:32.320 --> 22:37.280 Going down to the Amtrak station, he measured a 50-milligauss magnetic field, even with 22:37.280 --> 22:45.040 no trains, and he decided to do an experiment. 22:45.040 --> 22:57.780 I took data coming from Washington into Haven at two-second intervals with a gauss meter 22:57.780 --> 23:04.560 and what I noticed in that result was that the magnetic fields were enormously high compared 23:04.560 --> 23:08.120 to most of the epidemiological studies. 23:08.120 --> 23:13.440 On his journey, he measured peak magnetic fields as high as 600-milligauss. 23:13.440 --> 23:19.200 There hasn't been a major epidemic of leukemia among electric railroad commuters to my knowledge 23:19.200 --> 23:25.680 or among workers on electric railroads who would be exposed to the fields even longer. 23:25.680 --> 23:30.880 Last year, one Norwegian study did investigate electric railway workers. 23:30.880 --> 23:37.240 It found no effect. 23:37.240 --> 23:42.680 But there are other problems that make interpreting the occupational epidemiology difficult. 23:42.680 --> 23:47.680 While workers in a substation are exposed to about 40-milligauss, the fields from home 23:47.680 --> 23:53.800 appliances can be quite large as well, especially six inches or less from the appliance. 23:53.800 --> 23:57.960 You can't be turned down for any reason. 23:57.960 --> 24:24.960 Okay, let me hand them the kit. 24:24.960 --> 24:34.560 While these appliances are only on intermittently and the fields fall off quickly with distance, 24:34.560 --> 24:39.840 some, like electric blankets, can give long-term exposure. 24:39.840 --> 24:44.720 All of this makes the EMF issue far more complex than most epidemiology. 24:44.720 --> 24:49.680 As we live in an electric world with appliances and with overhead and underground cables, 24:49.680 --> 24:57.540 virtually everyone is exposed at home, in the workplace, even in the park. 24:57.540 --> 25:01.720 Even the epidemiologists who believe there may be a link with disease fear it may be 25:01.720 --> 25:04.360 impossible to prove. 25:04.360 --> 25:09.600 Cumulative exposure in the workplace is not notably higher than the cumulative exposure 25:09.600 --> 25:11.680 from outside the workplace. 25:11.680 --> 25:15.080 So if you have someone who's working, let's say, as an electrician and look at how much 25:15.080 --> 25:20.240 exposure they accrue over their workday, if they go home and use an electric blanket or 25:20.240 --> 25:24.600 perhaps live near certain kinds of power lines, they may actually get an equivalent amount 25:24.600 --> 25:32.600 of exposure at home. 25:32.600 --> 25:37.320 Paul Breder passionately disputes that the epidemiological studies are flawed and in 25:37.320 --> 25:42.540 a recent book argues that the truth is being concealed from the public. 25:42.540 --> 25:48.160 The cover-up involves government and industry, notably the Electric Power Research Institute, 25:48.160 --> 25:50.440 which funds much of the research. 25:50.440 --> 25:53.360 Mulder thinks this far-fetched. 25:53.360 --> 25:56.840 First of all, they would have to know the study was going to be negative before they 25:56.840 --> 25:58.300 funded it. 25:58.300 --> 26:04.320 And second, to repress positive findings in funded studies, I think would be next to impossible. 26:04.320 --> 26:08.840 Because you'd have to repress it in this country, you'd have to repress it in other 26:08.840 --> 26:17.160 countries, you'd have to repress publications by industry, by government, by academics. 26:17.160 --> 26:18.360 I don't think you could do it. 26:18.360 --> 26:20.880 Are you saying they're lying? 26:20.880 --> 26:23.920 I didn't say they were lying. 26:23.920 --> 26:27.460 I never said they were lying. 26:27.460 --> 26:33.120 And I have never claimed, nor do I believe, that any one of these scientists or any scientists 26:33.120 --> 26:42.400 who are being financed by EPRI or by the utility industries are falsifying their scientific 26:42.400 --> 26:43.800 data. 26:43.800 --> 26:48.220 What they are doing, and let's be clear about this, is not lying. 26:48.220 --> 26:53.960 They are coming out and they're making public pronouncements about their opinions. 26:53.960 --> 27:02.880 It is my quote, it is my opinion that there's absolutely no validity in any of the epidemiological 27:02.880 --> 27:04.960 studies that have been done so far. 27:04.960 --> 27:07.360 That's Patricia Buffler. 27:07.360 --> 27:12.200 Madam Buffler is not only a paid consultant of EPRI, she's a paid consultant of the San 27:12.200 --> 27:18.520 Diego Gas and Electric Company and has given an affidavit for them in court. 27:18.520 --> 27:24.720 I've worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reviewing their document on EMF, and 27:24.720 --> 27:30.240 I've worked with the Electric Power Institute putting in place their research program. 27:30.240 --> 27:36.320 Those are very important activities to participate in, and I think for someone to infer that 27:36.320 --> 27:41.140 by virtue of participating in those activities, I have a conflict of interest, is to attempt 27:41.140 --> 27:47.240 to intimidate me or others from participating in this public debate. 27:47.240 --> 27:53.580 Back in Omaha, Julie, Dee and Adrian, dissatisfied with the health department's response, joined 27:53.580 --> 27:57.080 a national activist group, the EMR Alliance. 27:57.080 --> 28:01.480 They were babysat, and they were both diagnosed with cancer, and ten years prior to that there 28:01.480 --> 28:02.480 was a child with them. 28:02.480 --> 28:06.480 We do believe there is a cover-up and that they have known about the link with electromagnetic 28:06.480 --> 28:10.760 fields and cancer for quite some years. 28:10.760 --> 28:15.480 Certain individuals have the information and are able to protect themselves and their families. 28:15.480 --> 28:18.760 It is not fair that the rest of the public does not have it. 28:18.760 --> 28:21.480 They need to tell the truth. 28:21.480 --> 28:25.640 Last year, Julie got the chance to make her views known to President Clinton when ABC 28:25.640 --> 28:30.780 invited Kevin to the White House for a special children's town meeting. 28:30.780 --> 28:36.080 In preparation for the program, ABC filmed Kevin in Omaha. 28:36.080 --> 28:38.640 I just think it's a big cover-up. 28:38.640 --> 28:41.800 There's just too many kids getting cancer around here. 28:41.800 --> 28:50.720 There's 11 kids in this one-mile radius from the substation that has cancer, 11 of them. 28:50.720 --> 28:55.500 The night before he was to appear with President Clinton, he became ill out in Washington and 28:55.500 --> 28:57.560 had to be hospitalized. 28:57.560 --> 29:00.760 So my other son took over for him on the show. 29:00.760 --> 29:04.000 Patrick, you want to talk to the President? 29:04.000 --> 29:06.880 I want to ask you his question. 29:06.880 --> 29:12.080 I have heard that recent studies have linked EMFs to childhood cancers. 29:12.080 --> 29:18.920 Other countries such as Sweden are passing laws to set standards as our President. 29:18.920 --> 29:25.480 Can you help lower EMFs so hopefully some childhood cancers can be prevented? 29:25.480 --> 29:29.160 That's something that we can do something about. 29:29.160 --> 29:35.360 We had a study in 1990 which was inconclusive about it, but you're right, Sweden has concluded 29:35.360 --> 29:39.480 that EMFs do lead to higher rates of cancer. 29:39.480 --> 29:45.140 So I have asked the person who runs the Environmental Protection Agency for our government to do 29:45.140 --> 29:49.200 a review of this and to make a report to me in the near future. 29:49.200 --> 29:53.600 We just have to look into it and see whether we think there's honestly evidence there, 29:53.600 --> 29:57.120 and if there is, then we have to take action and we're looking into it. 29:57.120 --> 29:59.160 And you tell your brother to hang in there. 29:59.160 --> 30:04.880 Kevin, I hope you're watching us and we're praying for you and pulling for you. 30:04.880 --> 30:09.400 Five days later, Kevin, Patrick, and Julie were invited to the Oval Office to talk further 30:09.400 --> 30:11.960 with President Clinton. 30:11.960 --> 30:15.720 In my heart, I believe President Clinton is sympathetic to the children. 30:15.720 --> 30:22.280 After meeting with him, I believe he's sympathetic, but I believe because of politics and large 30:22.280 --> 30:29.720 industries, his hands are tied. 30:29.720 --> 30:34.360 Two years before Julie's meeting at the White House, Congress had set aside funds, some 30:34.360 --> 30:41.560 $65 million, for research to try and resolve the issue. 30:41.560 --> 30:46.120 Because of the inconclusive epidemiology, research scientists like Gary Borman were 30:46.120 --> 30:49.720 brought in to investigate EMFs in the laboratory. 30:49.720 --> 30:54.600 Perhaps with carefully controlled scientific experiments, biologists would be able to unlock 30:54.600 --> 30:57.600 the mystery of magnetic fields. 30:57.600 --> 31:03.080 Borman realized that to get definitive answers, he had to attract first-class scientists. 31:03.080 --> 31:07.920 You have to apply the same scientific standards to magnetic field research as you would to 31:07.920 --> 31:09.920 any other field. 31:09.920 --> 31:14.040 We're trying to get the best investigators we can to bring their resources and their 31:14.040 --> 31:16.320 intellect to bear on this problem. 31:16.320 --> 31:17.320 It's very difficult. 31:17.320 --> 31:23.200 A lot of scientists would rather work on AIDS, breast cancer, other areas, and they're reluctant 31:23.200 --> 31:25.360 to get involved in this field. 31:25.360 --> 31:33.300 We're trying to get the best scientists involved, and we're having some luck in that regard. 31:33.300 --> 31:37.920 One large grant went to the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. 31:37.920 --> 31:43.000 They built the largest rodent electromagnetic exposure facility in the world, capable of 31:43.000 --> 31:50.720 exposing 3,000 animals at a time. 31:50.720 --> 31:54.680 Our budget for this program is a little over $9 million. 31:54.680 --> 31:59.920 The facility is constructed almost entirely of non-metallic materials. 31:59.920 --> 32:06.880 All the wall and ceiling construction is wood, temperature, humidity, noise level, light 32:06.880 --> 32:10.800 level are all controlled and monitored continuously. 32:10.800 --> 32:14.920 The Earth's magnetic fields in all the rooms have been mapped very extensively. 32:14.920 --> 32:19.280 We monitor the ambient fields in the rooms continuously. 32:19.280 --> 32:23.080 So I think it's fair to say we've taken quite great pains to remove any potential confounders 32:23.080 --> 32:24.760 from the program. 32:24.760 --> 32:30.000 Two years ago, the center began a series of crucial studies to see if magnetic fields 32:30.000 --> 32:36.360 caused birth defects or reproductive problems, to see if they caused or promoted cancer, 32:36.360 --> 32:41.960 to discover if magnetic fields affected the immune system. 32:41.960 --> 32:46.980 Unlike humans who are constantly exposed to 60 hertz magnetic fields, McCormick could 32:46.980 --> 32:52.860 ensure that one group of rodents, the control group, would be completely unexposed. 32:52.860 --> 32:57.040 Other groups would be exposed to different amounts of magnetic field from 20 milligauss 32:57.040 --> 33:02.280 all the way up to a massive 10,000 milligauss, thousands of times the average exposure in 33:02.280 --> 33:04.080 most homes. 33:04.080 --> 33:11.240 If anything could detect an effect, at least in rodents, these experiments should. 33:11.240 --> 33:15.880 Another exciting possibility that interested Boorman was that the magnetic fields were 33:15.880 --> 33:22.400 subtly affecting cancer genes in totally novel ways, as Paul Brodeur had claimed. 33:22.400 --> 33:27.800 While power line magnetic fields could not break DNA, some unconfirmed studies had claimed 33:27.800 --> 33:34.280 that the fields might stimulate a certain cancer gene, increasing its activity and presumably 33:34.280 --> 33:39.040 its likelihood of causing cancer. 33:39.040 --> 33:44.280 Jeff Saffer, a young molecular biologist, was intrigued by this possibility, so a couple 33:44.280 --> 33:48.640 of years ago he set out to try and validate the experiments. 33:48.640 --> 33:53.220 He placed identical batches of human cells into two test chambers. 33:53.220 --> 33:58.680 One batch of cells would be exposed to power line magnetic fields, the other would not. 33:58.680 --> 34:02.860 Saffer's job was to measure precisely whether this field affected the activity of a cancer 34:02.860 --> 34:05.400 gene called the mick gene. 34:05.400 --> 34:14.160 If it did, it meant in principle there might be a mechanism by which EMFs could cause cancer. 34:14.160 --> 34:16.520 Saffer knew that he had to be extremely careful. 34:16.520 --> 34:21.800 Temperature, humidity, noise, and vibrations might affect the subtle changes he was looking 34:21.800 --> 34:27.080 for. 34:27.080 --> 34:28.960 His first effort failed. 34:28.960 --> 34:35.520 Undaunted, he continued systematically searching for something he might have done wrong. 34:35.520 --> 34:42.000 These efforts would take nearly two years. 34:42.000 --> 34:48.480 By spring 1995, results from the different labs were beginning to come in. 34:48.480 --> 34:53.800 The Electromagnetic Rodent Exposure Laboratory in Chicago had completed five studies. 34:53.800 --> 35:01.280 First, the study looking at whether power line magnetic fields caused fetal abnormalities. 35:01.280 --> 35:04.680 We evaluated a total of 3,000 animals. 35:04.680 --> 35:09.440 We did complete skeletal evaluations, evaluations of the head, evaluations of all the visceral 35:09.440 --> 35:12.080 organs, and that study was completely negative. 35:12.080 --> 35:15.320 We found no adverse effects of the magnetic fields at all. 35:15.320 --> 35:20.080 A reproductive study involving 12 litters from three generations of animals bred under 35:20.080 --> 35:25.360 the magnetic fields was also over. 35:25.360 --> 35:29.760 The end points we looked at were number of successful pregnancies, number of litters 35:29.760 --> 35:33.640 which were actually delivered, number of pups per litter, birth weight, and a number of 35:33.640 --> 35:37.480 other parameters to assess the health of the pups once they're delivered, and again the 35:37.480 --> 35:41.360 results of that study demonstrated no effect of the magnetic fields on reproductive performance 35:41.360 --> 35:43.920 in either sex. 35:43.920 --> 35:49.200 Two cancer studies using specially bred cancer-prone mice were also finished. 35:49.200 --> 35:52.880 Did the magnetic fields promote an already existing cancer? 35:52.880 --> 35:57.440 Did the exposed animals get higher cancer rates? 35:57.440 --> 36:02.880 Again we found no evidence that magnetic fields stimulated lymphoma production in either strain. 36:02.880 --> 36:05.640 The EMF exposure had no effect. 36:05.640 --> 36:10.040 Finally, the immunology study also came out negative. 36:10.040 --> 36:14.800 One big study is still going on where rats will spend two years, essentially their whole 36:14.800 --> 36:17.520 life, under the magnetic field. 36:17.520 --> 36:20.520 This will test for a longer-term chronic effect. 36:20.520 --> 36:23.720 The results will be known next year. 36:23.720 --> 36:30.640 Meanwhile, at the Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Washington State, Jeff Saffer had gone 36:30.640 --> 36:36.120 to great lengths to discover whether magnetic fields could directly influence the mick cancer 36:36.120 --> 36:39.540 gene. 36:39.540 --> 36:45.480 Through his best efforts, nothing had worked, but he refused to give up. 36:45.480 --> 36:49.800 We went back and used different types of plastic ware to grow the cells that were different 36:49.800 --> 36:55.560 geometries, different shapes. 36:55.560 --> 37:03.000 We tried some higher field intensities, we tried some lower field intensities, we tried 37:03.000 --> 37:10.200 different types of serum, we also tried different concentrations, and again could not find any 37:10.200 --> 37:14.280 conditions under which the cells were responsive to magnetic fields. 37:14.280 --> 37:17.640 Finally, Saffer took an extraordinary step. 37:17.640 --> 37:23.000 He actually went to the laboratory of the investigator whose work he was trying to replicate. 37:23.000 --> 37:28.760 We went to the laboratories in New York City that had done these experiments, used their 37:28.760 --> 37:35.160 cells, used their culture vessel, their exposure system, and again were unable to find evidence 37:35.160 --> 37:40.920 for a change in mick expression due to the magnetic field. 37:40.920 --> 37:45.880 Saffer's conclusion was that the effects reported were not real, but probably resulted from 37:45.880 --> 37:49.280 inadequate experimental controls. 37:49.280 --> 37:55.680 Last month in the scientific journal Nature, a preliminary report of Saffer's work appeared. 37:55.680 --> 37:59.880 The same issue carried a report from a team in Cambridge, England, who had also tried 37:59.880 --> 38:04.080 and failed to find any effect. 38:04.080 --> 38:06.680 Other studies have recently reported negative results. 38:06.680 --> 38:11.240 A study into whether EMFs affect melatonin levels in humans, a hormone that's been linked 38:11.240 --> 38:13.920 to breast cancer, found no effect. 38:13.920 --> 38:19.480 A large study of pregnant women using electric blankets was also negative. 38:19.480 --> 38:24.600 While other experiments are still underway, so far things don't look promising. 38:24.600 --> 38:28.600 As you refine your studies, if there really is an effect, the effect should increase, 38:28.600 --> 38:31.920 it should become stronger, it should become more focused. 38:31.920 --> 38:36.960 And if you cannot, with repeated studies and with better studies, you continue not to find 38:36.960 --> 38:41.040 an effect or find only marginal effects, then it becomes obvious that there's really nothing 38:41.040 --> 38:44.680 there. 38:44.680 --> 38:50.080 When completed, these studies will help Congress decide what, if any, action to take. 38:50.080 --> 38:55.800 But Paul Brodeur doesn't believe laboratory studies should drive health policy. 38:55.800 --> 39:00.600 Laboratory studies are not going to be the criteria upon which we base preventive public 39:00.600 --> 39:01.680 health measures. 39:01.680 --> 39:08.520 We have used the epidemiology as the only viable tool for implementing preventive public 39:08.520 --> 39:09.520 health measures. 39:09.520 --> 39:15.240 It is the only viable tool. 39:15.240 --> 39:21.040 But in the face of so much negative laboratory data, can epidemiology alone prove that cancers 39:21.040 --> 39:25.960 like the one Kevin Laram has are caused by EMFs? 39:25.960 --> 39:31.320 One thing most epidemiologists agree on, even the ones who support a link between EMFs and 39:31.320 --> 39:38.360 cancer, is that the kind of lay epidemiology that the Omaha parents have done is unsound. 39:38.360 --> 39:43.040 They had identified four zip codes in Omaha which appear to have two to three times more 39:43.040 --> 39:49.080 cancer than average, and these zip codes are crisscrossed with power lines. 39:49.080 --> 39:51.800 It looks impressive, but for two things. 39:51.800 --> 39:56.760 First, according to their map, only three of the cases actually live within 300 feet 39:56.760 --> 40:03.400 of a power line, and power line fields fall off to tiny levels within this distance. 40:03.400 --> 40:09.180 But there is a second more crucial weakness to this lay epidemiology. 40:09.180 --> 40:12.560 Cancers do not fall evenly across the landscape. 40:12.560 --> 40:17.880 Even if there is no carcinogenic agent in the environment, just by random chance, some 40:17.880 --> 40:23.600 zip codes will get more cases than average. 40:23.600 --> 40:25.880 Others will get less. 40:25.880 --> 40:32.000 For example, this densely populated zip code a few miles away has just five cancer cases, 40:32.000 --> 40:38.200 less than half the expected number, and it too is crisscrossed with power lines. 40:38.200 --> 40:43.480 In many of the cluster investigations where cases are taking place in time and space, 40:43.480 --> 40:46.160 these events most likely are happening by chance. 40:46.160 --> 40:52.520 And if you draw artificial boundaries around a cluster in time and place, it's like the 40:52.520 --> 40:56.000 Texas sharpshooter. 40:56.000 --> 41:02.200 Epidemiologists like to tell their students the cautionary tale of the Texas sharpshooter. 41:02.200 --> 41:09.800 He takes his gun, shoots at the side of the barn and then draws a bullseye around it afterwards 41:09.800 --> 41:13.640 and then says, aha, I have a bullseye. 41:13.640 --> 41:17.720 Drawing artificial boundaries in space and time, such as cancers occurring in certain 41:17.720 --> 41:23.160 zip codes during certain time periods, can create an illusion of a cluster. 41:23.160 --> 41:27.480 In fact, like the sharpshooter's bullets, cancers are usually scattered randomly throughout 41:27.480 --> 41:29.200 the landscape. 41:29.200 --> 41:36.120 Even scientists who support an EMF cancer link agree it's not valid scientifically. 41:36.120 --> 41:41.760 By statistics alone, it's very possible that there will be a number of cancers in one block 41:41.760 --> 41:45.440 and none in the next ten blocks. 41:45.440 --> 41:52.040 And if one wants to try to identify sources of cancer, what one must do is study many, 41:52.040 --> 41:54.360 many children. 41:54.360 --> 41:57.280 That's just what a number of investigators did. 41:57.280 --> 42:02.680 Over the past 15 years, a series of residential studies, each involving thousands of children, 42:02.680 --> 42:04.480 have been done. 42:04.480 --> 42:09.480 The results have been controversial because, depending on how exposure from powerline EMFs 42:09.480 --> 42:15.680 was estimated, epidemiologists either found or did not find associations with childhood 42:15.680 --> 42:17.020 cancer. 42:17.020 --> 42:21.280 Like the occupational studies of electrical workers, the typical risk ratios reported 42:21.280 --> 42:24.960 in these studies were low, around two or less. 42:24.960 --> 42:30.480 Too low, most epidemiologists felt, to prove an effect. 42:30.480 --> 42:35.840 But in 1992, a landmark study appeared from Sweden. 42:35.840 --> 42:37.520 A huge investigation. 42:37.520 --> 42:42.200 It enrolled everyone living within 300 meters of Sweden's high-voltage transmission line 42:42.200 --> 42:45.400 system over a 25-year period. 42:45.400 --> 42:50.360 They went far beyond all previous studies in their efforts to measure magnetic fields, 42:50.360 --> 42:55.560 calculating the fields that the children were exposed to at the time of their cancer diagnosis 42:55.560 --> 42:57.080 and before. 42:57.080 --> 43:02.360 This study reported an apparently clear association between magnetic field exposure and childhood 43:02.360 --> 43:07.640 leukemia, with a risk ratio for the most highly exposed of nearly four. 43:07.640 --> 43:12.520 The Swedish government announced it was investigating new policy options, including whether to move 43:12.520 --> 43:15.800 children away from schools near powerlines. 43:15.800 --> 43:20.760 Surely, here was the proof that powerlines were dangerous. 43:20.760 --> 43:29.200 The proof that even the physicists and biological naysayers would have to accept. 43:29.200 --> 43:37.520 But three years after the study was published, the Swedish research no longer looked so unassailable. 43:37.520 --> 43:42.320 This is a copy of the original contractor's report, which reveals the remarkable thoroughness 43:42.320 --> 43:44.680 of the Swedish team. 43:44.680 --> 43:50.000 Unlike the published article, which just summarizes part of the data, the report shows everything 43:50.000 --> 43:52.640 they did in great detail. 43:52.640 --> 44:07.240 All the things they measured, and all the comparisons they made. 44:07.240 --> 44:14.600 When scientists saw how many things they had measured, nearly 800 risk ratios are 44:14.600 --> 44:15.600 in the report. 44:15.600 --> 44:21.360 They began accusing the Swedes of falling into one of the most fundamental errors in 44:21.360 --> 44:32.000 epidemiology, sometimes called the multiple comparisons fallacy. 44:32.000 --> 44:38.400 The problem is, when you do as they did, hundreds and hundreds of comparisons, something enabled 44:38.400 --> 44:40.860 800 different comparisons. 44:40.860 --> 44:46.400 By the standard way we do statistics, we would expect five percent of those to be statistically 44:46.400 --> 44:51.280 elevated and five percent to be statistically decreased. 44:51.280 --> 44:52.960 And now you have a problem. 44:52.960 --> 44:59.360 If you find by one measure of exposure that leukemia is up in a group of kids, is that 44:59.360 --> 45:05.520 real or is that the result of just random noise in the system? 45:05.520 --> 45:11.240 In their thoroughness, the Swedes had created their own version of the Texas sharpshooter 45:11.240 --> 45:12.240 problem. 45:12.240 --> 45:16.640 Even if nothing is going on due to power lines, if you measure hundreds of risk ratios they 45:16.640 --> 45:21.020 will scatter by random chance around a mean of one. 45:21.020 --> 45:24.240 Some will be above and some below. 45:24.240 --> 45:29.280 Risk ratios below one suggest that EMFs protect against cancer. 45:29.280 --> 45:32.760 Above one, that they increase the cancer rate. 45:32.760 --> 45:37.860 But the published article focused only on the strongest positive risk ratios. 45:37.860 --> 45:44.240 The summary highlights a nearly four-fold increase in risk of childhood leukemia. 45:44.240 --> 45:48.360 This is what the press picks up and the public hears. 45:48.360 --> 45:52.920 It is not scientifically reasonable to do all the measurements, but then only pick out 45:52.920 --> 45:58.700 the ones that give you the answer you want for publication. 45:58.700 --> 46:05.840 If I dredge through their original report, I can find situations which looked at in isolation 46:05.840 --> 46:10.920 without looking at the rest of the report, that if that was the only data I gave you, 46:10.920 --> 46:16.560 I could claim that that proved that power lines protected children against childhood 46:16.560 --> 46:18.840 leukemia. 46:18.840 --> 46:22.200 It is analogous to the Texas sharpshooter. 46:22.200 --> 46:25.220 What we're searching for in any research is truth. 46:25.220 --> 46:32.960 That search for truth argues for being rigorous, having clearly documented your methods, and 46:32.960 --> 46:39.680 not withholding any information, not using the information in a selective way. 46:39.680 --> 46:43.840 How many of the EMF studies commit this error is unclear. 46:43.840 --> 46:48.880 Original contractors' reports are rarely available, yet the issue is fundamental. 46:48.880 --> 46:52.500 Outside of epidemiology, most scientists are unanimous. 46:52.500 --> 46:58.920 You cannot confuse a study that tests a hypothesis with one that generates them. 46:58.920 --> 47:04.200 Epidemiologists should decide what they are going to look for and write it down before 47:04.200 --> 47:05.800 they make the search. 47:05.800 --> 47:09.880 Just what they're going to look for and just how they're going to look for it. 47:09.880 --> 47:14.840 Then after they make their analysis, they will find two sets of things. 47:14.840 --> 47:21.720 They will find answers to the questions they had asked, and now we have a situation where 47:21.720 --> 47:27.760 one can analyze properly the statistical significance of those answers. 47:27.760 --> 47:32.200 They will also have answers to questions which weren't asked. 47:32.200 --> 47:39.160 Odd things may show up, and that's very interesting too, but we separate those in another category. 47:39.160 --> 47:43.600 We call those hypothesis-generating experiments. 47:43.600 --> 47:49.040 If you want to say whether that's really a real result or just a fluctuation, then you 47:49.040 --> 47:57.040 must do a second experiment where that is on your list of things to look at. 47:57.040 --> 48:00.200 This may be a weakness in the album study. 48:00.200 --> 48:03.240 I'm not familiar with it myself. 48:03.240 --> 48:06.820 There are weaknesses to be found in all of the epidemiological studies. 48:06.820 --> 48:12.280 You can take any given epidemiological study, and I saw the asbestos industry do this time 48:12.280 --> 48:13.280 and again. 48:13.280 --> 48:18.040 As it comes over the horizon, gets published, you can shoot it down with all kinds of stuff. 48:18.040 --> 48:25.560 They're trying to shoot down the Canadian study now, but the totality of these studies 48:25.560 --> 48:35.120 suggests a pervasive major public health problem that needs to be dealt with and that I believe 48:35.120 --> 48:41.040 will have to be dealt with because the American people will demand that it be dealt with. 48:41.040 --> 48:46.460 In the face of negative biology and contentious epidemiology, what should lawmakers do to 48:46.460 --> 48:51.000 protect people from a risk that may well not be there? 48:51.000 --> 48:54.280 Peter Vollberg is an expert in risk assessment. 48:54.280 --> 48:56.760 One thing he says is certain. 48:56.760 --> 49:01.000 Even supposing there is a risk, the fact that it has been so hard to prove that power line 49:01.000 --> 49:08.000 magnetic fields cause cancer means that by definition, any risk cannot be very large. 49:08.000 --> 49:12.120 Even assuming the Swedish study were true, the increased risk to children of getting 49:12.120 --> 49:16.880 a very rare cancer like leukemia is of the order of one in a million. 49:16.880 --> 49:20.400 Would moving them to another school make them safer? 49:20.400 --> 49:24.160 On the one hand, you might argue that if you believe there is an elevated risk from the 49:24.160 --> 49:28.000 adjacent nature of the power lines that you could move the children out. 49:28.000 --> 49:32.340 But if this in fact involves putting them on a vehicle such as a bus and driving them 49:32.340 --> 49:39.640 a mile or so, we know from real actuarial statistics that being on a bus does carry 49:39.640 --> 49:43.120 some real health hazards in terms of injury and death. 49:43.120 --> 49:46.560 The EMF risk is likely very small. 49:46.560 --> 49:52.120 It's hypothetical on several bases, whereas the risk from getting in a car is very concrete. 49:52.120 --> 49:53.120 It's very real. 49:53.120 --> 49:56.240 We can actually appreciate that and we know how to calculate that. 49:56.240 --> 50:01.760 And to say that you're going to incur these concrete risks in order to avoid this very 50:01.760 --> 50:05.540 low hypothetical risk doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. 50:05.540 --> 50:08.300 And in fact, the Swedish authorities now agree. 50:08.300 --> 50:14.360 In reflection, they decided not to make any policy changes based on the 1992 study. 50:14.360 --> 50:18.360 So should President Clinton follow the Swedes and do nothing? 50:18.360 --> 50:20.520 Not according to David Carpenter. 50:20.520 --> 50:22.040 There's too much smoke here. 50:22.040 --> 50:23.960 There's got to be a fire. 50:23.960 --> 50:32.920 While I admit that the proof is not 100 percent, there is consistency in correlation between 50:32.920 --> 50:38.360 leukemia and brain tumors and exposure to magnetic fields, both in residential and occupational 50:38.360 --> 50:39.360 settings. 50:39.360 --> 50:42.720 So I do not believe that doing nothing is appropriate. 50:42.720 --> 50:47.960 Amidst the public controversy for Dee and Julie, there is good personal news. 50:47.960 --> 50:52.840 In a happy reversal of fortune, both Kevin and Jonathan's cancers are in remission and 50:52.840 --> 50:55.280 their future looks very promising. 50:55.280 --> 51:00.040 Thanks to major advances in childhood cancer therapy, nearly two-thirds of childhood cancers 51:00.040 --> 51:02.440 are now curable. 51:02.440 --> 51:05.960 But they have not changed their beliefs about EMFs. 51:05.960 --> 51:08.800 Our human body is very complex. 51:08.800 --> 51:14.800 It will be years before scientists understand it more, and they will never understand it 51:14.800 --> 51:17.800 completely the way God put us together. 51:17.800 --> 51:23.520 There is significant studies that do show that electromagnetic fields make changes, 51:23.520 --> 51:24.960 and that's what I believe in. 51:24.960 --> 51:28.160 And do they have any doubts they're on the right track? 51:28.160 --> 51:29.160 No. 51:29.160 --> 51:31.400 None at all. 51:31.400 --> 51:35.840 I'm 100 percent sure. 51:35.840 --> 51:41.040 Rightly or wrongly, power lines are now part of a long list of environmental agents that 51:41.040 --> 51:43.120 the public fears. 51:43.120 --> 51:48.760 While unproven, these fears, once established, are hard to erase. 51:48.760 --> 51:53.640 Reducing anxieties is far, far more difficult than inciting anxieties. 51:53.640 --> 51:59.400 I think it partly hinges on a difficulty that people have with understanding numbers. 51:59.400 --> 52:03.720 I mean, you can say the risk is high, the risk is low, and so forth. 52:03.720 --> 52:07.760 But the quantitative differences are difficult for people to appreciate. 52:07.760 --> 52:12.400 But why would people fear power lines more than established risks, such as smoking and 52:12.400 --> 52:13.760 driving? 52:13.760 --> 52:19.400 What are the big risks that people seem to be totally unafraid of, like driving a car, 52:19.400 --> 52:23.480 versus the small risks they appear to be very afraid of? 52:23.480 --> 52:30.360 The differences seem to be people are less afraid of risks they think they control. 52:30.360 --> 52:34.120 And they're less afraid of risks that they think they understand. 52:34.120 --> 52:39.400 So the things that people are most afraid of is things they can't control and don't 52:39.400 --> 52:40.400 understand. 52:40.400 --> 52:44.000 And certainly power lines fall right in that category. 52:44.000 --> 52:48.960 A society must pay a price for its fears, whether they are real or imaginary. 52:48.960 --> 52:54.760 The power line controversy is costing an estimated $1 billion a year, money, critics argue, that 52:54.760 --> 52:58.080 could be much better spent elsewhere. 52:58.080 --> 53:04.640 The total cost to our society was this nonsense, this unreasoning fear of electromagnetic fields. 53:04.640 --> 53:10.440 It was a serious drag on our economy and in some sense on our civilization. 53:10.440 --> 53:15.480 And it's like the little boy who calls wolf all the time. 53:15.480 --> 53:20.680 In one of these days a real wolf is going to come and people are going to be so used 53:20.680 --> 53:29.720 to the imaginary wolves that they're going to miss the real wolf. 53:29.720 --> 53:33.140 Frontline wants to hear your reactions to our programs. 53:33.140 --> 53:40.600 So interact with Frontline by sending your comments by fax to 617-254-0243, by letter 53:40.600 --> 53:51.840 or home video, to Dear Frontline, 125 Western Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, 02134. 53:51.840 --> 53:55.280 And next time on Frontline... 53:55.280 --> 53:58.200 The O.J. Simpson trial shifted from dry testimony about DNA... 53:58.200 --> 54:05.560 Twelve years ago, Los Angeles was gripped by another gruesome murder case. 54:05.560 --> 54:12.600 And the hillside strangler almost got away with it. 54:12.600 --> 54:18.400 In Frontline's The Mind of a Murderer, find out how the killer's elaborate disguise was 54:18.400 --> 54:25.880 unmasked. 54:25.880 --> 54:31.800 Let us say that you have a erratic windstorm where the wind's blowing all over the place. 54:31.800 --> 54:37.160 Your neighbor calls up and says, your cat is breathing on my tree and that might damage 54:37.160 --> 54:38.160 the tree. 54:38.160 --> 55:02.720 Well, you wouldn't take it very seriously. 55:02.720 --> 55:30.920 You wouldn't take it very seriously, you wouldn't take it very seriously, you wouldn't 55:30.920 --> 55:47.840 take it very seriously. 55:47.840 --> 55:54.840 Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by annual financial 55:54.840 --> 55:59.320 support from viewers like you. 55:59.320 --> 56:04.080 Frontline is produced for the Documentary Consortium by WGBH Boston, which is solely 56:04.080 --> 56:11.800 responsible for its content. 56:11.800 --> 56:18.920 For videocassette information about this program, please call this toll-free number, 1-800-328-PBS-1. 56:18.920 --> 56:30.200 This is PBS.